Berlin’s Mescid-i Aksa mosque vandalised

The windows of the mosque were painted in yellow, red and green, the colours used by PKK for its flag.

Mescid-i Aksa mosque
Mescid-i Aksa mosque, run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) association, Berlin Germany April 06 2018 [Anadolu]

Assailants have vandalised a mosque in Germany’s capital, Berlin, writing slogans on its windows and covering parts of them with paint.

Officials at Mescid-i Aksa mosque blamed supporters of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for the overnight attack, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.

The windows of the mosque, which is run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), association, were painted in yellow, red and green, the colours used by the groups for their flags.

The PKK is listed as a “terrorist” organisation in Turkey, the European Union and US.

Spade of attacks

In recent years, there have a number of attacks against mosques in Germany.

In March, the Aksemsettin Mosque – belonging to the Muslim-Turkish association Islamic Community National View (IGMG) – in the town of Lauffen am Neckar was attacked and set alight.

Also in March, in the southern city of Ulm, a mosque run by the local Turkish community was attacked with Molotov bombs.

In September 2016, a mosque and a convention centre were bombed in the eastern German city of Dresden.

At the time, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the attack was “all the more scandalous”, as it happened on the eve of the 10th annual meeting of the German Islam Conference.

Germany has a three million-strong Turkish community, many of whom are second and third-generation German-born citizens of Turkish descent whose grandparents moved to the country during the 1960s.

Source: Anadolu